Fun With the GPO Style Manual

It’s National Library Week, which prompted me to think about my favorite Government reference book – the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual, which since 1894 has been the Federal Government’s guide to form and style in printing and a standard reference for professionals in the field. Although I’ve used the Style Manual for years in a number of different jobs I’ve had at GPO, the real reason it’s my favorite is, I confess, that I’m a member of the GPO Style Board. For many months prior to the publication of the latest edition, our little group met for two hours each week to discuss spelling, capitalization, and the myriad of other details that collectively make up any book of this sort. The best part – it was a lot of fun. As one of the members said to me one day, “This is the high point of my week!” For a word person, spending time on this stuff was really a plum assignment. Some of my colleagues were old acquaintances, while others were new to me. The one thing they all had in common was a depth of knowledge and a dedication to producing the best possible product that was truly awesome. I also found out what a demonym is: “Demonym is a name given to a people or inhabitants of a place. ” (See Chapter 17, Useful Tables, Pages 332-334.)

My favorite new features of the 2008 edition: A list of information technology acronyms and initialisms; a chapter on capitalization with totally updated examples of proper names (a lot of research went into this, believe me!); and a clean, contemporary new design and typeface, thanks to GPO Creative Services.

Despite my obvious bias in favor of the Style Manual, many other Government books and periodicals are worthy of inclusion in the library reference pantheon – you can find a few of them here.

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From the GPO Style Board: “On the Source note on page 334 of the GPO Style Manual, the Demonym table originated from the CIA’s World Factbook as of July 24, 2008. GPO did not delete, add, or alter this source in any way.”

Having read this I believed it was very enlightening.
I appreciate you finding the time and energy to put this information together.
I once again find myself personally spending
a significant amount of time both reading and
posting comments. But so what, it was still worth it!

Does GPO have a preferred style for references and citations? I can’t seem to find anything in the manual that addresses this issue. If GPO has no guidance on this issue, do we use Chicago style or something else for formatting?

Noon is neither 12 a.m. nor 12 p.m.; it is 12 m.
Think Latin: ante meridiem means before the meridian and post meridiem means after the meridian. In order for there to be a before and an after, there must be a meridian, which happens to be noon. When I went to school, we were taught that 12 p.m. was the last minute of the day, in other words, midnight, or 12 hours after (post) the meridian. Any chance you can fix that in your style guide? It seems to have caused massive clutural misunderstanding.

Cynthia: Great question! I consulted with the Chairman of the GPO Style Board who gave me this terrific explanation for the new rule:

When the GPO Style Board reviewed and revised the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual, we had an extensive discussion regarding this issue. GPO no longer recognizes “12 m’’ as a reference to time. On page 271, Rule 12.9 we make it clear by our parenthetical notation that “12 p.m.’’ indicates “12 noon’’ and “12 a.m.’’ indicates “12 midnight’’ for our purposes. It simplifies the discussion. To say it another way, if “12:01 a.m. is one minute after midnight, then “12 a.m.’’ is midnight.

Our Style Manual is a printer’s style guide rather than one for writers, so it doesn’t cover that kind of thing. A lot of bureaucratic writing overindulges in the passive voice and I personally try to minimize its use. I’m not the Government, though! Attempts to clarify Government writing recommend concision and limiting passive voice helps with that.

Suggested GPO-related and grammatical corrections to the fourth paragraph of the home page of GPO Government Book Talk are enumerated below the copied text.
“This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 10:21 am and is filed under Government Printing Office. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.”

(1) In the first sentence, per GPO 9.45, text references to dates should not contain “th.”
(2) A comma is needed after “2010,” per GPO 8.49.
(3) In expressions of time, the two periods are retained for text references to meridian (a.m. and p.m.), per GPO 8.26 and 9.54.
(4) In the second sentence above, since “can” indicates capability whereas “may” signifies an optional action on the part of the person addressed, the latter word should be used.
(5) As is usually the case, the word “any” adds no meaning, retards the reader’s comprehension, and should be deleted.
(6) Some careful writers reserve the word “through” for its literal spatial sense, preferring “by means of” for intangible usages.
(7) In the third sentence, “can” should be changed to “may” (see point 4 above).
(8) The comma after “response” should be deleted, because it needlessly separates parallel, coordinate verbs, in harmony with the context of chapter 8 of the GPO Style Manual.

The two-word form “Web site” makes eminent sense, not only from the standpoint of pronunciation but also for the purpose of indicating that the Web and sites continue to be distinct entities.
So on this very page, above this reply block, could that be fixed?

Re “Web site”: I was not referring to the comment on the topic but to the instructions for replying, which are below the bold head “Leave a Reply Cancel reply” (pls. review the capping in that phrase). In the instructions, the expression is set solid, which we agree is wrong.
One other comment about the instructions——twice “e-mail” omits what I was under the impression GPO would rule is a necessary hyphen.

The GPO Style Manual is a printer’s style book, so determining whether to use one or two spaces if the material is not going to be typeset by GPO is really up to you, or to whichever style guidelines are set by the entity for which you are preparing the material, be it a law firm, a company, a publisher, or some other entity.

My favorite government book on language is Gobbledygook Has Got To Go, by John O’Hayre. It was published by the Bureau of Land Management in 1966. It is wildly outdated (assuming all women are secretaries, and I don’t mean Secretary of State), but it is clever and interesting and full of tips about clear writing.